Friday, October 21, 2016

Nikon surprised me with a hands on demo with the some of their newest lenses attached to a Nikon D750. I was able to take shots and examine them via the on-screen LCD, and the quality at maximum zoom looked outstanding.

First things first – this lens feels way lighter than any DSLR 70-200mm f/2.8 I’ve ever held, and that’s a good thing in these days where DSLR shooters question the burden of extra weight over mirrorless alternatives.

Another pleasant surprise was that in the limited testing indoors in Javits Convention Center, I was able to quickly focus and track subjects in non ideal lighting conditions. Every test shot I had at the appropriate shutter speed was razor sharp and in focus. This is a huge leap from its predecessor, as I always found my Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 II to be way faster at focusing especially in difficult lighting situations. I can honestly say that Nikon has created a lens that feels like its matched the focusing speed of my Canon, and limited testing proved that the VR and sharpness definitely warrant a head to head comparison in the future.

It’s got reasonable minimum focus distance which is a really big deal, so when I was testing it out with subjects nearby I didn’t have a practical scenario where it didn’t focus. This is going to be a big win for event and wedding photographers!

Here’s more specs from Nikon:

The professional’s choice for nearly any photographic scenario, the AF-S NIKKOR

This is a a crazy sharp tilt shift that feels very substantial with butter smooth knobs. While I’m not a big tilt-shift or manual focus lens shooter, real estate photographers are going to be pretty pleased with this offering as it shows minimum edge distortion based on my limited hands on testing today.